Deth

I saw a post about getting some ancient software to run. It seems that even if the software requires a key to use it, there is usually a way to crack it. Old software is a great way to learn. I don’t condone cracking stuff to use for free, but often times this archaic software is made by defunct companies or there’s no other way to use it.

It was made available on diskettes or some other physical format, too, so there’s usually a way to access it. It may not be easy, but unlike the cloud, it’s still there. If you really needed to use that older software, you’d at least have a chance of getting it working. Even if it’s a long, outdated version, there’s a possibility of getting it to run. If you find old, archived files saved in a format that only that software supports, that could be a way to open them.

The companies that run all the cloud storage and cloud software will pull the plug someday. One day, someone will decide it’s not profitable. If you had a physical copy, you’d still be able to access it, but not on the internet if they shut down.

The ancient software could probably function without a working internet connection, too. Take the other day’s cell phone outage as a wake-up call. In the past several years, there’s been a few major internet outages that had a ton of sites down. Cloudflare’s outage comes to mind. You also can’t forget that big level 3 outage a few years ago. The cloud crap is just fragile. It’s interesting to me how many important things rely on it.